Test Anxiety
by Jurai Knight
Summary: A side story for Quantum Destinies, looking at one side-effect of QD Ranma's visit to the Ranma 1/2 timeline.


*** Earth +4.614, +4.502

"You will have two hours to complete your final exam for this subject, class," said Takami-sensei, the portly science teacher, sweating as he usually did during the summer months despite the air conditioning blasting the room. "I trust that all of you studied well for it. This section of material is commonly on most college entrance exams, so it would do you all well to know it now."

Ranma sat, sweating slightly, in his seat. Behind him, he heard Akane setting out her pencils and scratch paper. Oh, man, the pigtailed boy thought gloomily. He didn't get a chance to study any of this stuff. He hated science class. It always made him feel dumb.

Seated at her desk, Akane watched without amusement as her fiancé fretted in front of her while the test papers were being handed out. That dummy, she thought with a frown. He had two whole weeks to study this material, and he wasted it picking on poor Ryoga and flirting with Shampoo. It'll serve him right to totally flunk this exam. Honestly, you'd think he'd learn by now.

"Your test paper, Saotome-san," said the teacher mildly, laying it face down on Ranma's desk. "I truly hope you're able to do better with this one than the last one you did. Otherwise, you're looking at summer school to make it up."

"Uh, yessir," answered Ranma, staring at the plain white sheet of paper in front of him as if it was an imminent death sentence.

Ohmanohman, he thought with mild panic. Only a miracle was going to save his neck now.

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Test Anxiety

A Quantum Destinies Side-Story

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic

By S. Thesken aka Jurai Knight

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi. This story is inspired by her works and the stories from some of my fellow fanfic authors. Among these are D.B. Sommer's "Shampoo 1/2", Jim Bader's "A Very Scary Thought -aka- Nabiki 1/2", and John Biles' Elseworlds series. All C&C is welcome.

The list of worlds occurring in this story:

Earth +4.614, +4.502 – The world of Ranma 1/2 (Ranma 1/2 cluster)

This story takes place after Chapter Thirty-Two of Quantum Destinies. It looks in on the results of QD Ranma's brief visit to his Ranma 1/2 analog's life.

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"You may begin, class," said Takami-sensei, before he seated himself at his desk at the front of the class and began reading.

Ranma flipped over the paper, expecting the worst. Science class was his first class for the day, and he had been dreading his finals ever since he woke up. He had honestly tried to study for them, but with Ryoga or some other wacko attacking him every time he turned around it was rather hard to get in much quality study time in his life.

He read the first question: "What is the Photoelectric Effect?"

Huh? Did we cover that? The sweat on Ranma's brow got a little bit heavier. He covered his face with his left hand and tried hard to concentrate. His right hand dropped to the paper, holding his pencil.

He stared at the question again through splayed fingers, sweat beading upon his brow. Then, something strange happened. The answer to the question seemed to suddenly just appear in his mind. Quickly, he scribbled it down and then stared at it.

Then he quickly blinked several times.

The first problem must have been easier than I thought, he mused a bit smugly. Heh. Well, that was easy. Normally, it took him a long time to figure out the answer to a single question, especially those involving math or science. This time it took less than five seconds.

A miracle had indeed happened.

Ranma read the next question: "What exactly is an Electronvolt as opposed to a Volt? What is its value in Joules?"

What? How the heck should I know that?

Suddenly, he heard his own voice in his head, reciting the answer as if reading it from a book, "An Electronvolt is a unit of energy equal to the amount of energy one electron acquires by accelerating (from rest) through a potential difference of one volt. It is usually used as a measure of particle energies, although it is not an International System unit. The International System unit for energy is the Joule. One Electronvolt equals 1.602 x 10^-19 joules."

Heh. Guess I must've learned this stuff better than I thought by whatchamacallit... sleep learning.

He proudly decided that he would have to sleep more in class. He scribbled down the answer to the second problem with a grin on his face and moved on to the next one.

His hand began scribbling down answers almost as fast as he could read the questions. He glanced back and saw that Akane was still working her way through the third problem. Her face was set in deep thought as she slowly wrote down her answer. He looked down at his own paper and saw that he was on question number six already.

Takami-sensei coughed gently up front, and the young martial artist glanced at him in surprise. The instructor slowly shook his head at him. Ranma quickly put his attention back onto his own paper and gleefully continued scribbling down answers. Solutions suddenly appeared within his mind for every question, like he was now an encyclopedia of scientific knowledge.

It was a heady experience, like mastering the Amaguriken technique had been a while back. Maybe the universe had decided to pay him back a little for all the problems he had to deal with. At least he shouldn't have to worry about summer school now.

Before he realized it, he was done with the entire exam and had been able to answer every problem. His test paper was filled with untidy scribbling. Not only had he answered them, he answered them all so fast. The one final exam he had been dreading all morning turned out to be frighteningly easy. He knew that he had never done so well on a test in his life.

Oddly, after completing the last question, the reservoir of knowledge seemed to utterly drain away as if it had never existed. He wondered if the stress he had been feeling over the test had conjured up some kind of ghost to help him, but it didn't really matter to him anymore. He was just happy to have finished the exam and could finally put it behind him.

When he was the first student to turn in his paper, almost an hour early, Takami-sensei had looked up at him with a bemused gaze. Ranma went back to his seat, and the teacher began grading his exam. Some of his classmates, like Hiroshi, eyed him with curiosity. Ukyo looked up from her seat in the back and smiled at him with a wondering look on her face. He simply shrugged his shoulders and sat down.

As the teacher continued looking over Ranma's exam, the initial bemused look on his face first changed to surprise and then transformed to a state of utter shock as he went down the list of answers written on the boy's paper. Ranma didn't notice this, since he currently had his head down on his desk, apparently asleep. The instructor kept looking over at the young martial artist, an increasingly querying look on his face.

Had he finally gotten through to the boy? Compared to his last exam, it was like night and day. He couldn't possibly have cheated off someone else, since he was the first one done. What was going on?

Akane grumbled softly behind Ranma at a particularly tough problem for her. She hadn't even noticed him turn in his test paper so quickly.

Argh! I studied for hours for this exam! Come on, Akane. What's the answer? You can do this. She finally scribbled down another answer and then looked up at the clock to see how much time she had left. Only thirty minutes left. I can finish this. That'll show Ranma what a dummy he is for neglecting his schoolwork like he does. You'd think he expects the answers to just appear out of thin air for him.

When class was finally over, Takami-sensei gave Ranma back his exam with tears welling up in his eyes and dribbling down his cheeks. The pigtailed boy was utterly bewildered, and the rest of the class was even more surprised. He stared stupidly at the grade on the front page of his exam, a perfect score. Standing next to him, Akane gave a small gasp of surprise when she saw it.

"Thank you, Saotome-san," Takami-sensei said solemnly. "If I can get a result like this out of someone like you, then I must truly be doing something right as a teacher. I finally got through to you." He beamed with an almost beatific joy.

Hiroshi and Daisuke suddenly crowded around him.

"Wow, Ranma! You learn some new martial arts studying method?" asked Hiroshi. "I thought you told me this morning that you weren't ready for this final."

"Yeah, Ranma," said Daisuke. "You've never done that well on an exam before. What's your secret?"

"I-I don't know," mumbled the pigtailed boy, staring at the paper in shock, as if seeing it for the first time. The rest of the students in the class crowded around to see the evidence. The young martial artist had indeed gotten a perfect score.

"Ranchan, that's wonderful!" shouted Ukyo, hugging him. I just knew that he could do well in school, if he just put some of that legendary Saotome stubbornness into his studies, she mused happily.

A small smile of triumph appeared on the pigtailed boy's face as it sank in how well he had done. This meant no summer school!

Behind them, Akane clenched one hand into a fist, her frustration with the test compounded with her confusion at her fiancé's unexpected success. But, he hadn't studied for it, she mused in bewilderment, not like she had. How did he manage to do that?

Noticing Ukyo was still clinging to the pigtailed boy, that image sent her over the edge. She loudly snarled out "RANMA!"

The pigtailed boy turned around, saw his fiancée in a full fury over something and decided that discretion was probably the better part of valor. He quickly wriggled free of Ukyo's firm grasp and ran out the door, the youngest Tendo in hot pursuit.

The fading sounds of "...so uncute..." trailed behind them.

Behind them, Ukyo shrugged, musing that she had better save Ranma from Akane. After grabbing her battle spatula, she took off after them.

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This was a little idea that came to me years ago and demanded to be written. I couldn't really fit it into the main storyline, so I've done it as a side story after polishing it up a bit.


End file.
